


no language left to say it

by weathering



Series: it's a slow burning fire [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Lazy Mornings, Morning Sex, a lot of feelings considering they both haven't expressed their feelings yet, lots of early morning sunshine, this is the closest i've ever gotten to writing a sex scene aren't y'all proud, this was supposed to be really soft and i think i succeeded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 11:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weathering/pseuds/weathering
Summary: There are are mornings where he wakes up before her, not because he’s been shaken awake out of nightmares, but for no reason other than that the Fade has decided it is done with him. When this happens, he’ll take a moment to enjoy the feeling of her curled around him. How her arm is slung loosely across his waist. Her breath against his neck.All reminders that he is here, not elsewhere.All reminders that he is safe.





	no language left to say it

**Author's Note:**

> Her eyes look sharp and steady  
> Into the empty parts of me

There are are mornings where he wakes up before her, not because he’s been shaken awake out of nightmares, but for no reason other than that the Fade has decided it is done with him. When this happens, he’ll take a moment to enjoy the feeling of her curled around him. How her arm is slung loosely across his waist. Her breath against his neck. All reminders that he is here, not elsewhere. All reminders that he is safe. Cullen will bask in this feeling as he awakes, but then he’ll roll over as slowly and gently as he can in order not to wake her, just so he can lay in the morning sun and stare for a while.

This is one of those mornings. His heart feels too big for his chest, threatening to crack his ribs as he looks at her. He prays, in that moment, more feeling than thought, an overwhelming wave of thankfulness that the Maker brought him this. That the Maker let him keep it. That he continuously brings her back to him in one piece, so that he can watch the early morning light from the open balcony doors spill across the bed and onto her skin. These moments are his favorites, where he gets to take her in. Her face, relaxed in sleep. The thin scar that runs through her eyebrow and across her cheekbone that wasn’t there when they met. The larger scar along her jawline that was. Her hair, a mess of tangled curls that falls around her shoulders, glowing a bright auburn in the morning sun.

 

(It brings to mind a memory, of her pinning him into the grass after an impromptu sparring session in a neighbouring valley. She’s laughing, the sun positioned perfectly behind her head to light her hair up in a halo. He’s staring up at her, smiling down at him with her slightly crooked teeth, and is suddenly overwhelmed in the knowledge that he’d do anything she asked of him. That he’d drop everything and run away with her right now if she wanted him to. There has never been a moment in which he’s wanted to tell her that he loves her more than that one, when she’s laughing and momentarily carefree, lit up by the sun. 

He didn’t tell her. Not then. Not yet.

He laughed along with her, pulled her down to kiss him instead of succumbing to the thundering urge to let his feelings come tumbling out.

He still hasn’t told her.)

 

He can’t help but reach out, hesitating for a few heartbeats before brushing away the few curls that had escaped her braid during the night. The movement reveals a sharp cheekbone, and he barely brushes a thumb across it, reaching instead for her neck. He runs his fingertips across her throat and to her shoulders, trailing along the jagged scars there. Those he traces over a few times, movements slow and featherlight. Reminds himself not of how fragile she is, but of how well she heals. How she always come back to him. That he treats her gently not because he’s afraid that she’ll break, but because she is the most precious thing he’s ever had a chance to hold. It seems too presumptuous, for him to believe that he’d ever have the power to break her, to even put a crack in her skin. To him she seems made of steel, able to weather anything the world throws at her.

 

(Here he is wrong; even steel can rust. More importantly; it can melt, under high enough heat. To her, he burns like the sun; he has already changed her more than Ariadne ever thought was possible. In time, he too will know this. In time, he will even believe it. He will learn that she isn’t the one that is holding the broken pieces of him together. That he’s doing that himself. She is the balm over the wounds, helps keep the pain away while he does the same for her. They will learn that they are stronger, together, but can still stand on their own. It has harder for Ari to learn the first thing. It is harder for Cullen to learn the second.)

 

From her shoulder he traces further down her arm. Her skin is a few shades darker than that of her shoulders, dusted more liberally with freckles, tanned from all her time in the desert. She dislikes having her arms covered, and it shows. His hands are so pale in comparison, hidden away inside gloves or indoors all day, porcelain against her copper. Reminds him of how in the time that they’ve known each other, she’s spent more time away from him than with him. He’s thankful that she’s here now.

 

(He spends a lot of time thinking about how she looks like autumn, all warm reds and browns with eyes the colour of the overcast sky. A smile that can be the warmth of the last days of summer or the sharp threat of winter.)

 

When he reaches her elbow he turns back, lets his fingers drift up her bicep and up to the slope of her shoulder. From here he deviates from his former path, tracing along the sharp angles of her collarbones, following the line of them to her other shoulder and back. He’s so focused on their progress that his fingers have trailed back over to the shoulder they started on before he realises that something has changed. He glances up to see storm blue eyes staring back at him, clear enough to show that she’s been awake for a while. His hand stills. They stare at each other for a moment, until she blinks slowly, quirking her lip up in a small smile, ducking her head down slightly as she gets comfortable. At that he returns to running his fingertips across her shoulder, drawing slow figure eights on her shoulder, no less gentle than before.

She reaches out and puts her hand on his chest, where she lets it rest for a few beats. She follows his heartbeat up to his throat, keep her palm against his pulse for a moment, before coming up to cup his jaw. Her thumb runs across the weeks worth of scruff he’d grown, too busy to shave. Cullen can’t help but let out a content hum, tilting his head further into her hand. She laughs softly, but doesn’t stop the motion. His eyes drift shut, still running his fingers across her shoulders. A few minutes later, she stops in order to brush his hair, curly in its natural state, off of his forehead. He blinks his eyes open at her and smiles. The hand in his hair tightens just long enough to pull him closer, relaxing its grip when he’s close enough to kiss.

 

(It’s nothing like the days before. It isn’t rough or hurried, a mess of teeth and nails being dragged across skin. It is not a desperate confirmation that they are both still here, still breathing.

It wasn’t easy for either of them to accept any of this to be reality, that they are alive and mostly in one piece. That Ariadne killed a creature claiming to be a god. That she showed up after the battle drenched in blood that wasn’t her own, exhausted and bruised, but alive.

Cullen had spent the next few nights whispering desperate prayers into her skin. Prayers to the Maker are pressed against her throat. Urgent pleas to the Dalish gods against her sternum. Appeals to the old gods with his lips pressed against the scar on her stomach. Ducks his head lower to wordlessly beg Ariadne herself, until he has her shaking apart. He hands out benedictions to anyone who will listen. Places them against both of her knees and thighs. One to each of her ribs. To her breasts, her ears, her palms. He prays for her safety. For her to be real. For the war to be over. For them to make it through.

He’s unsure of who he prayed to the most, and cares little for the blasphemy of it. How sacrilegious could it have been, praying to foreign gods and idols, if she’s here with him now, alive? It did not feel like blasphemy. It did not feel holy. The Maker may have sent her, but she has always kept him grounded too much to be anything but real.)

  


This time, their kisses are slow and gentle. Her hand runs through his hair, softly scratching against his scalp, tugs gently at the curls at the base of his skull, a request to be nearer. He complies, pressing closer, dropping his hand to her sternum. His fingers continue to draw lazy patterns across her skin, skimming along her collarbones, circling around the outer edge of her breast before arcing back. She hums low in her throat, a content noise. He keeps repeating the motion, as languid as their kisses. They’ve spent the last few days rushing, and he wants to take his time with her. For the first time in days, it feels like they don’t need to rush.

Slowly, he pulls away. She chases his lips, for a moment, before letting him trail kisses across her cheekbones, over to her ear, pressing a kiss behind it. Cullen smiles against her skin when he feels her breath hitch, chuckles softly when a gentle nip to the pointed end of her ear makes her pull on his hair. He follows the same path across to the other side of her face, stopping to press a kiss to each scar he comes across. He tips her head back so he can reach the scar under her jaw, follows the slope of her shoulder to the set of four jagged marks there, no longer an angry red but far from the point where they’ll start to fade. Leisurely moves back to the hollow of her throat, across her collarbones, down her sternum. He brackets her ribcage with his hands, thumbs brushing the bottom curve of her breasts as he glances up at her.

Ari looks down at him with dark eyes, shifts so she can hook one leg around his hip and pull him closer. He complies, the open mouthed kisses he’s slowly pressing to her breasts making her sigh and tighten her leg against his hip, pulling him closer. She lets him take his time, until the grip on his hair is just on the side of rough and they’re both aching for more.

She laces their fingers together, scratching the nails on her free hand lightly down the back of his neck as he groans quietly, forehead pressed against her shoulder. They stay still for a moment, even though his muscles are shaking in order to stay still. She takes pity on them both, rocks her hips up sharply, drawing soft moans from both of them. Their movements are still unhurried, nothing like the days before, and she pulls him up to kiss him again. Cullen thinks this might be the most tender she’s ever been with him, the most tender they’ve ever been with each other.

 

(He hasn’t told her that he loves her yet. It didn’t seem right, to tell her as she walked off to almost certain death, even when he thought keeping that information to himself might kill him. He thinks she knew, regardless of what he didn’t say. He thinks she knows now, and wonders if she loves him back. He wants to be hers.)

 

There’s only so long they can keep things slow, and soon their leisurely pace isn’t enough for either of them. Ari is trembling underneath him, arching her back as she tries to pull him even closer, and rolls her hips sharply up into his, taking control of their pace. Her legs tighten around his hips, and she breathes out a short phrase in Dalish that he can’t understand as she comes undone, clutching at his back. He’s not far behind, gasping her name against her throat, and they both collapse back into the bed. She can feel his heartbeat pounding, can feel hers doing the same thing.

Once they’ve caught their breath she brushes the curls back off of his forehead, other hand tucked under her head. Cullen hums softly at the feeling, eyes sliding shut as she continues the motion. When he blinks them back open a few minutes later, she’s looking at him with an expression he can’t quite pinpoint. His forehead wrinkles in confusion, but before he has a chance to ask she kisses his forehead, his nose, his scar, and his lips in turn, cupping his face so she can run her thumb along his temple in a soothing gesture. She smiles softly, then pulls him over so he’s resting his head on her chest, arms wrapped around her while she runs her fingers through his hair. She hums, content, when he twines their legs together and runs his fingers gently up and down her spine.

Cullen shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch the sun rise any further, so he can bask in the web of tenderness they’ve spun for a little longer. He knows they have to go back to their duties today, but for now he is content to pretend that they only belong to each other.

Tomorrow, he thinks, rubbing his thumb along the sharp edge of her hipbone with his free hand. Tomorrow he’ll tell her he loves her. So she knows for certain.

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to try something different, writing wise. This takes place a handful of days after the final battle against Corypheus; their last morning of solitude before they have to go back to their duties. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and/or come talk to me on tumblr at onesparrow.tumblr.com


End file.
